Chemistry Of Falling In Love /

If you’ve fallen in love more than once you may well have spotted the physical similarities in your behaviour and the specific feelings you get even though the person and situation may be entirely different!

The butterflies in your tummy, the inability to eat or sleep for daydreaming – it can all take over your life for a time.

These feelings are not just a co-incidence or your emotions taking over, scientists have revealed that there are actual physical and chemical reasons for the feelings of euphoria that we experience when we fall in love. The behavioural patterns that are well recognised in love sick humans have also been recognised in partnering animals. The simple explanation is that it is part of our genetic programming facilitating us to partner long enough to re-produce.

Humans are advanced mammals however with a very developed logical/lateral thinking capability so we don’t just go by our instincts; the process of falling in love can often begin with us choosing a partner to get to know better based on a combination of logic, conscious physical attraction and unconscious genetic compatibility. When we actually start falling in love it often feels as though it’s out of control and our conscious minds have no more say in the matter!

It has been discovered that when people fall in love there are much higher levels of the natural stimulants norepinphrine and dopamine in the brain. These chemicals leave us feeling euphoric and allow us to survive with less sleep but also interfere with concentration and appetite which explains a great deal! The really interesting thing is that these symptoms are very similar to those seen in drug addicts addicted to opiates like heroin or morphine.

If you are newly in love you want to see that person as much as possible to get the ‘hit’ that you crave a bit like a drug addict. Research has shown that the areas of the brain that are stimulated by drug addicts under the influence are also stimulated when a person in love is shown a photo of their beloved!

Two very important learnings have come from this research; falling in love is not just emotional but quite physical and partly out of our conscious control. Also that drug addiction is so easy to fall into as it mimics a process that we are genetically programmed to go with.

Those of you that have fallen in love and stayed with the person long term will know that this initial stage doesn’t start from day one and doesn’t last forever either. Love can be approximately separated into three parts;

Firstly the sexual attraction that is driven by hormones, this is stimulated by sight, touch and the smell of pheromones and it’s purpose is to get us hunting a partner in the first place!

Secondly the euphoric love sick stage that we have been talking about, this stage magnetises us to one partner at a time to give us the best possible chance of mating with them.

Thirdly the more settled ‘attachment’ phase is the part of our programming to keep us together for at least the early years of any children’s lives to protect and give them the best start.

Explaining it like a computer programme seems to take all the romance out of it though!